Then they conceived the idea of delaying matters by greatly prolonging the preliminary examination; but they were afraid that this might give a new development to the case, and pile up against you a crushing mass of evidence, methodically recorded.
Finally, in desperation, they decided to impose upon me an unequal struggle, tying my hands in advance, to assure you, by the methods of a lawyer’s clerk, the victory that undoubtedly you did not expect from a free discussion.
You have forgotten that I am to have for judges twelve French citizens, in possession of their independence.
I shall find a way to win by the force of justice; I shall illuminate consciences with the effulgence of truth. At the first words we shall see the methods of the quibblers swept away by the imperious necessity of proof. This proof the law bids me give, and the law would be a liar if, imposing on me this duty, it should refuse me the means of doing it.
How could I prove the charges of which you complain, if I were not allowed to show the concatenation of facts and were prevented from placing the whole matter in the fullest light?
Liberty to prove,—that is the power on which I depend.
On January 24 M. Zola’s counsel served notice on the attorney-general of a long list of witnesses whom he intended to summon, in which notice he called on the attorney-general to produce in court all the papers relating to the trials of Captain Dreyfus and Major Esterhazy, and made formal offer to prove, not only the matters set forth in the summons, but also, as inseparable from them, the charges preferred in the letter to President Faure against Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty de Clam, General Mercier, General Billot, General de Boisdeffre, General Gonse, General de Pellieux, Major Ravary, the three experts in handwriting,—Belhomme, Varinard, and Couard,—the war offices, and the Dreyfus council of war.
On February 7 M. Zola and M. Perrenx appeared for trial, and the record of the court proceedings here follows.